Co-Founder & COO / MenuSifu / New York
Yu Li
He didn't build an app you'd brag about. He built the software that keeps 15,000 restaurants open.
RESTAURANT TECH - OPERATOR - BUILDER
He didn't build an app you'd brag about. He built the software that keeps 15,000 restaurants open.
Walk into a busy Chinese takeout in Queens, a bubble tea counter in California, a hot pot spot in Texas. Different food, different owners, different accents behind the register. The one thing many of them share sits quietly on the counter: a MenuSifu terminal. Yu Li is the co-founder and chief operating officer who made that possible - the person turning a scrappy point-of-sale product into the nervous system of Asian dining in America.
Today MenuSifu is not a single gadget. It is an ecosystem: the POS, a payment rail called USezPay, an online-ordering and delivery layer called MealKeyWay, a financing arm called EZ Capital, and a growing stack of AI and automation tools. More than 15,000 restaurants across all 50 states run on it. In March 2025 the company closed a $40 million Series B. Yu Li's mission, meanwhile, ended up on the Nasdaq billboard in Times Square as part of the 2025 Asia Milestone Makers Cohort.
The interesting part is not the billboard. It is the boring, essential machinery underneath it - and the fact that Yu Li chose to build for the restaurants nobody else wanted to serve.
We're not just building tools - we're building an ecosystem that grows with you.- Yu Li, Co-Founder & COO, MenuSifu
In 2013, three people from Columbia University's research and engineering world looked at the restaurant industry and saw a strange gap.
Yu Li, William Wang and Weiqi Ma noticed that an entire category - independent, often immigrant-owned Asian restaurants - had been largely skipped by real technology. The big POS players chased franchises and fine dining. The mom-and-pop noodle shop with three tables was too small, too specific, too hard to serve. So they built MenuSifu for exactly that overlooked owner.
It turned out the "boring" market was enormous. Menus in two languages. Delivery apps eating margins. Owners who needed financing but couldn't get a traditional bank loan. Every problem the giants ignored became a product line.
I've always felt that there hasn't been enough tech innovation in the restaurant industry.- Yu Li
The pitch was never flashy. It was practical: consistent food, better service, prices owners could actually hold. Yu Li has kept returning to that plain idea while the product around it multiplied.
Our mission is to make AI and automation practical, accessible, and powerful for every restaurant.- Yu Li, 2025 NRA Show keynote
The point-of-sale platform at the center of it all - handheld, cloud, multi-language, built for the way Asian restaurants actually run.
Payment processing and table-side, contactless transactions folded directly into the register.
Online ordering, delivery integration and customer engagement, so owners keep more of every off-premise dollar.
Flexible restaurant financing for owners often shut out of traditional bank lending.
A community and awards program celebrating standout Chinese restaurant brands across North America.
AI-driven kitchen automation, smart beverage tech and data intelligence - the "future-ready" layer Yu Li is now building.
There was no overnight moment. No consumer craze. Just a compounding line - reported at 142% annual growth since 2022 - built one restaurant, one register, one signed owner at a time. The reach map below is illustrative of that scale-up.
By 2025 the company powered operations for MIXUE, the world's largest beverage chain by store count, as it pushed into the United States. The bubble tea boom you can see on every corner? Some of its back office runs on Yu Li's software.
Yu Li co-founds MenuSifu in New York with William Wang and Weiqi Ma - a team from Columbia University's research and engineering ranks.
MenuSifu ships its POS system built for independent Asian restaurants going digital.
The company enters a stretch of rapid, compounding growth later clocked at 142% a year.
Announces restaurant automation partnerships at the NRA Show in Chicago.
Closes a $40M Series B. Yu Li delivers a data-driven NRA keynote; MenuSifu powers MIXUE's U.S. expansion.
Yu Li is featured on the Nasdaq Times Square billboard with the Asia Milestone Makers Cohort.
"Sifu" means master. The name casts the software as a restaurant's own tech master, or skilled expert.
Campus origins. MenuSifu grew straight out of Columbia University's research and engineering talent.
Bubble tea's back office. MenuSifu quietly powers specialty beverage shops, including MIXUE's U.S. stores.
Profile compiled from public sources including PR Newswire, Restaurant Technology News, Pandaily, Nasdaq, MenuSifu, and LinkedIn. Figures are as reported by the company and press; totals may vary between sources.
Yu Li is the co-founder and COO of MenuSifu, the New York restaurant technology company that has become the top point-of-sale provider for Asian restaurants in North America. Starting in 2013 as a POS system for independent Asian restaurants, MenuSifu has grown into an integrated ecosystem of payments, online ordering, financing, and AI-driven automation serving more than 15,000 restaurants across all 50 states. Under Yu Li's operating leadership the company raised a $40 million Series B in 2025, powers MIXUE's U.S. expansion, and Yu Li himself was featured on the Nasdaq Times Square billboard as part of the 2025 Asia Milestone Makers Cohort.
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